


The Marbles: Very Miserable

by Birrrrrd



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Brown University, Communism, F/F, M/M, Multi, Other, Parody, Revolution, Satire, Socialism, Song Parody, marxism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-23 04:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13779588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birrrrrd/pseuds/Birrrrrd
Summary: When a bunch of frat boys decide to lead the revolution, nothing can possibly go wrong.





	The Marbles: Very Miserable

**Author's Note:**

> The players... (don’t especially matter, they are new iterations)  
> The marxist... Enjolras  
> The skeptic… Grantaire  
> The not-man… Eponine  
> The half-man… Gavroche  
> Mary… Marius  
> An old lover (Grace)… Cosette

 

 

We want a revolution. So we read Marx. That’s what somebody says when  
     somebody else: hey dickhole, not everybody has the time to read marx, and  
     then the marxist: class is everything but  
     the skeptic: we all go to Brown can we just  
Look inward. Now outward. Now under your legs. Look! It’s the revolution!  
The half-man (he’s fourteen and really good at math) laughs. The not-man (the only one) also laughs. They’ve been following Mary, the soft one who sometimes sounds like a woman  
          (Mary: I’ve never met a girl like you before)  
          (not-man: That’s because I’m not a girl)  
          (Mary: Oh! Then you should rush my frat!)  
     marx: my father owned factories  
     the marxist: we have a real chance at making a change. the world outside is falling apart. we’re the ones who can channel that chaos and turn things around. imagine a new world  
     columbus: imagine a new world  
(you, the audience: imagine a new world, where they don’t die brutally, far-left tragedy)  
(god, the dog, whispering in an ear: I wrote the bible) 

We spend a week reading Franz Fanon in the hopes of understanding our place in revolutionary history. We read gay tragedies (the french revolution). We shoot darts out of our eyes. “The american revolution was started by a small group of university graduates. We have as good a chance.” The american eye-roll. _I heard the marxist fucked the skeptic after that big fight. No kidding man, they’ve been at it for years.  
_ If you’re going to die anyway, might as well live a small death before the sending off party

_and in private,_  
_the skeptic: it is your time to rise_  
_the marxist: it is our time to fall  
_ **_confetti_ **

The moon and sun are bickering all day, the Father and Son fight at night, the not-man is quivering in bed, having run into an old lover (Grace) yesterday:  
     “You came to Brown?”  
     “Oh, my God, it’s so great to see you!”  
and she’s still beautiful (you were afraid she’d be less pretty), and still smiles at you, and even asked what name you go by now, because back then she was not ready to jump into your hairy arms, but what about tomorrow?  
one year since the not-man bled a blue-blood period, the same substance as before, but something downright not-woman there to stain their pants—what lesbian is going to kiss a boy?  
     “I’d love to catch up sometime, if you’re around.”  
     “That’d be really cool. Yeah, I, let’s do that.”  
You hear the smile in her voice, echoing back, and back, and 

 _Back up a little further_ , the marxist says, emptying a truck full of guns  
onto the frat house couches, spilling over the video game consoles  
Pushing the liquor back into its cabinets, an infestation  
of bloody plans 

_I know what we’ll do. We’ll contact everybody, all the major far-left organizers. We’ll tell everybody. We’ll publicize it. And we’ll tell them all, come to Brown University on this day. We’re ending this once and for all. And we’ll invite students here, too, of course—but only the ones we know to be not-backwards. And we can call the news. We need as many cameras as possible. I read about the AIM takeovers, I know what I’m doing._

_I can’t handle this fucking paper right now, man, I need to focus on overthrowing the bourgeoisie!_

_Call everybody. Call your families if you can. Call your girlfriends. This could be the beginning of the end, and the end of the beginning. Or.. something like that._

Children have a place in revolution, the half-man says. _No, he can’t join us, he’s fourteen._ But think of Steven Universe! Harry Potter! Percy Jackson! Narnia! Ender’s Game! Star Wars, even! Teen Titans / X-Men / Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles / Miyazaki movies / Zelda games / Attack on Titan / Naruto / Spiderman / Dragon Ball / Pokemon / Pacific Rim / The Matrix / Game of Thrones / Firefly / Star Trek / Final Fantasy / Avatar / Fallout / Nightvale—hell, My Little Pony!

 _.Fine, fine,_ / _maybe. Maybe._

 

Slow motion collisions, young flesh and blue blood, someone’s midterm never quite finished. The not-man’s not-lover visits the frat, says hello and then goodbye, catches Mary’s eye: look at the embodiment of grace, an innocent girl whose smile makes music—  
her dad’s an ex-con  
her dad owns a factory  
you sure you want to dive knee-deep into that shit?  
but think of the _vacations_ , no no—                            think of the bourgeoisie learning opportunity  
Mary, infiltrate their ranks and tell us what you see  
     the skeptic: we see enough from these leather couches, now pour me a drink  
     the marxist: drink with me

     Are you willing to die for the future’s freedom?  
     A silence. A sneeze. Someone cracks a beer. A last cold one with the boys.

The not-man is not ready. They tell Mary to drop it—doesn’t he love Grace? Remember what the marxist said—no time for love in the revolution. Drop your date or drop your fate. Come with me. Come on, Mary, you can’t live like this. I know you don’t want to die, and you don’t have to. I know, the guys are all counting on you, but what the everloving fuck! Nobody with half a mind would go through with this!

Decisions, decisions.

An end.

 

 

 

 

 

Wait. Tell me more, though. Tell me why they believed in each other. Tell me where they came from. Tell me whose mothers were washing their clothes. Tell me how they fell away from youth, if they fell. Tell me about the girls they kissed in high school (did they kiss girls?). Why did their outrage differ from anyone else’s? Why do I care? Why does the train accelerate toward the crash? Why do I look hard at the kiss-collision, where death is fire and speculation? What if they’d been different? 

If they’d been different,  
would there be kiss-collisions under dim honey lighting,  
would the marxist have read more feminist theory,  
would the skeptic have been better-loved,  
would the not-man be not-about-to-die,  
would the factory-owner still be the savior,  
would the police officer save the white boys,  
would the revolution have been televised?

But there, a spark in the dryer, something left out to roast too long  
We don’t know when to let a god story lie  
We don’t know when to let a good story die.


End file.
